Mental-health care is worth the cost

The horrific massacre in Newtown has sparked endless debate on gun control. Another issue, of at least equal importance, continues to be ignored. Mentally healthy people do not simply enter public schools and murder innocent children along with those who try to protect them.

Every day, insurance companies, rather than trained mental-health professionals, make decisions regarding treatment plans for people with mental illness. Patients are discharged from hospitals and residential treatment facilities when their insurance company, not their therapist, decides they are "stable."

Patients and their families are told that such a high level of care is no longer deemed medically necessary by their insurance carrier, and that services can be delivered on an outpatient basis. As a society, we can no longer afford to ignore this. Whether or not the issue of mental illness affectseffects our own individual families, the Newtown tragedy reminds us no one is spared the impact of limited access to care, and treatment decisions are based on financial concern rather than patient condition.

As the children of Sandy Hook Elementary School begin to grapple with this life-altering event, the symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder will undoubtedly begin to emerge. I pray that these youngsters and their families will have ample access to highly trained professionals who will be authorized to continue to provide treatment, no matter how long the recovery process takes.

Long term mental- health services may indeed be very expensive. The price we pay for the lack of such services is unbearable.

Debra Roth

Suffern

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Mental-health care is worth the cost

The horrific massacre in Newtown has sparked endless debate on gun control. Another issue, of at least equal importance, continues to be ignored. Mentally healthy people do not simply enter public

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